I wrote a proposal for worship that I shared with my church (My Worship 7 proposal is outlined in Going Deeper below).  It took the ideas of 1 Corinthians 14:26 and applied them to the modern church and a congregation that is growing.  The principles are simple to grasp.  One underlying principle in particular is:  The church should encourage active participation by its members in the worship service.  Think of how services have become performance by a few on the stage.  Think of how many people in church are passive.  This is not just the fault of worship-as-amusement.  When we come with nothing to offer we share the blame.  How would you encourage your church to involve more people in worship?

1 Corinthians 14: 26-27

²⁶What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. ²⁷If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. ²⁸If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.

Questions

1. What different things can Corinthian believers bring to a church service?
2. Which of the answers to question 1 must be done for the strengthening of the church?
3. How is tongues integrated into the service?
4. What active part do members bring to your church worship service?
5. How will you be active in church worship this coming week?

Going Deeper

Read this proposal for modernizing 1 Corinthians 14:26. 

Worship 7

Foundational Scripture: 

What shall we say, brothers?  When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.  All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.  (1 Corinthians 14:26)

Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.  Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.  (Ephesians 4:19)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3: 16)

Rationale

These verses lay responsibility on the members of the church to come prepared to be active participants in worship.  Not only are they participants when they arrive, they are participants in the planning.

Recent marketing campaigns have shown that people take ownership of a product when they participate in its formation.  Examples would be Coke:  Make it Real (as a reinvention of Coke:  The Real Thing);  Burger King:  Have it Your Way;  Yahoo is Under New Management:  You!;  and I am a PC and Windows 7 was my idea.  This is a rediscovery of truths that God used in the formation of the early church.  Participation in planning leads to increased ownership.

With worship, this becomes increasingly difficult as size increases.  A small church of 20 or 30 people can plan on the spot together and make up a service as they go along.  A church of 9,000 on multiple campuses cannot do this.  To engage the congregation in worship as mandated above, a new approach needs to happen.

Worship 7 would be a good name for this venture because 7 is the complete number in scripture and we want complete participation.  This proposal is an upgrade from previous styles of worship and so the cosmetics could be linked with the marketing campaign of Windows 7.  The present marketing campaign for windows and the ancient church’s desire to have each member participate also have close parallels.

We are ministering to millennial/mosaics.  What would be more appropriate than drawing from a variety of sources to construct a mosaic presentation featuring them?

This would create quite a shift in the worship world if this was pulled off.  I believe it would position us at the cutting edge and it is very doable.  I would suggest starting small with Wednesday night communion.

Implementation

• Worship director decides a broad list of songs that the worship team is able to play.
• Worship director decides whether congregants can bring testimonies or words from scripture, etc. to the congregation if vetted by him/her.
• Web team constructs a website allowing congregants to vote on:
  • A theme of worship
  • Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs from a selection provided by the worship leader
  • Web team adds to a Worship 7 website
    • A space where people share stories of God’s provision
    • A space where people share what God has been teaching them from scripture
    • A space where people can make suggestions about art and drama
    • A space for other multi-sensory suggestions to enhance worship
    • The worship director brings together a team that processes the data from the website and constructs a mosaic of worship that gives glory to God.
    • This is promoted as Worship 7:  I am The Chapel and Worship 7 was my idea.  Similar videos could be made to the ones that Microsoft is using now.

How could you make a plan for your church?